Parent Tip: Travel toys for toddlers
Been doing some research online prepping for our trip east to my sister's wedding and a visit with my folks. Specifically, I'm looking for ways to keep Bobbin entertained on the 5-hour airplane ride, and in the 2-hour car ride back to my folks house, and in the 4 hour car ride a couple of days later from my parents' to the town where my sister's getting married.
I don't want to have to lug around a 10 lb bag of toys, nor do I relish the idea of having to pick up pieces of something - be it legos, doll accessories, etc - from the floor. So I've been looking for creative alternatives. The fact that I'm keeping them all hidden until the plane ride so that they're new and exciting when I pull them out should help too. At any rate, here are some cool things I've found:
1) Color Scroller by Alex Toys- Color and keep 50 pictures to create your own slide show! As pictures are completed, simply turn the knob at the bottom to advance to the next one. Color Scroller measures 7” x 9” and includes 6 crayons in a handy drawer, and two fun scrolls! Alex Toys (www.alextoys.com ) has a lot of other good portable arts & crafts toys too that you might want to check out.
2) Crayola Color Wonder paints, markers, colouring books and paper – the paints and markers only work on the special paper so you won’t mess the plane or your car up you can get a little travel tote like this one
3) Imaginetics Magnetic Playsets- they have ones with dinosaurs, cars, firetrucks, sesame street, thomas the tank engine– pretty much any subject. You and your toddler can create pictures, tell stories and play games! If you have a toddler fond of stickers (and what toddler isn't?) these are fun because they're kinda like stickers that you can use over and over and over again
4) Our "big ticket" purchase was a small, lightweight and slim portable DVD player (that also hooks up to Tim's i-pod) and some brand new Elmo DVDs to go with it :-)
5) To prep for the airport and airplane experience, I came across this little gem: "The I'm a Good Little Traveller! DVD Toolkit Series: Shae by Air". We haven't watched it yet (we'll pop it in tomorrow morning instead of the usual Elmo and see what happens :-)) but it sounded good. We'll let you know whether or not it was worthwhile :-)
6) Books are always guaranteed to keep Bobbin interested for a good amount of time. But hard covers and board books are bulky and quickly become heavy if you're toting more than 1. So we'll be bringing a bunch of toddler magazines like Baby Bug (which is also available in your local PCC to purchase) and National Geographic's "Little Kids" magazine for toddlers age 3-6 (Bobbin loves the photos!). Cheap and light weight, and no harm done if they go missing or get damaged. Other light weight and travel-friendly paperbacks that toddlers will enjoy include those in the DK Readers "pre level 1" and Level 1 Learning to Read series. Big real photos of people and animals, combined with the simple story make for a good toddler-read. We picked out "Petting Zoo", My Cat's Secret, and Surprise Puppy!. They're also cheap and no harm done if they get lost or forgotten.
7) What Toddler doesn't love cards of any kind? I found a card game for toddlers age 3+ called "Puppy Surprise" with pictures of Puppy in all kinds of different places. It comes with a die that I'll leave at home; but the cards are colourful and entertaining enough that she'll have fun with them as we make up our own version of the "game" to play.
And all of these combined will fit neatly into the bottom of our diaper bag, which will also contain changing essentials, and a lunch box full of snack food :-) I should also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the diaper bag itself - After 18 months of dissatisfaction with the diaper bag knapsack, diaper bag shoulder bag, and diaper bag classic bag (too big, too small, too many pockets, not enough pockets, too hard to clean, no insulated compartment, etc) I finaly found one that works. Jujube makes some great bags. They're more expensive but they're stylish and most importantly roomy, functional, and comfortable. I got the "packabe" in brown and bubblegum - which doubles as both a shoulder bag and knapsack, and is comfortable in both configurations, easily switched from one to the other, has nice magnet fastners instead of snaps or velcro, tonnes of room and easy to clean. I love it. I bought an insulated soft lunch box (standard size) and it fits in there nicely with plenty of room for diapering necessities, her favourite blanket, and some toys. And there's still plenty of room left over for wet-ones, mommy's wallet and camera and keys, and a water bottle for each of us.
Well - we're ready. We'll let you know how well these all actually work in entertaining our little munchkin. I have a high degree of confidence though :-)
Comments
Are you coming to my hometown?
Posted by Lisa on April 21, 2007 10:37 AM.